Congress state president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday accused Mamata Banerjee of ruining the prospect of an alliance among the constituents of the INDIA bloc in Bengal.
“It is Didi (Mamata) who ruined the prospect of an alliance here. If you listen to what she said (recently) it will be clear to you that Didi did not want an alliance. Trinamul said they are interested (in going for an alliance) nationally, but not in the state. It is clear that the Bengal chief minister does not want an alliance in the state,” Adhir said on Saturday to reporters at the Congress party office in Murshidabad’s Behrampore, his Lok Sabha constituency.
It was clear that the Behrampore MP was reacting to Mamata’s public statement at a political meeting in North 24-Parganas on Thursday where she said the Opposition INDIA alliance existed nationally but out of Bengal borders.
“INDIA will be there across India, and in Bengal, it will be the Trinamul Congress fighting the good fight,” Mamata said on Thursday at Deganga, North 24-Parganas.
Trinamul sources said Mamata’s comment captured her displeasure with the delay in sealing the seat-sharing deal in Bengal with the Congress. During a meeting of the INDIA bloc in Delhi earlier this month, Mamata set a December 31 deadline for the conclusion of the seat-sharing talks.
While Adhir blamed Mamata, it is no secret that he has been bitterly against joining hands with Trinamul.
“We don’t bother what Trinamul says (about the alliance). We are preparing ourselves to contest the elections. We defeated both Trinamul and the BJP multiple times and the trend will be followed again. But we don’t have any objection (to an alliance),” Adhir said.
Adhir’s comments on Saturday captured the fissures in the state Congress on the issue of alliance, as on Thursday, veteran Congress leader and the party’s Malda South MP Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury publicly claimed Mamata would leave Behrampore and Malda South MP seats for his party as part of the seat-sharing pact.
A political analyst, who did not wish to be named, said that the Behrampore MP’s comments were aimed at exerting pressure on Trinamul to offer more seats to the Grand Old Party, which plans to contest where it still has some organisational presence left. Behrampore and Malda South apart, these places are Murshidabad, Jangipur, Malda North, Raiganj, Darjeeling, Purulia and Basirhat.
A senior Trinamul leader said the Congress should revisit its organisational strength before demanding seven Lok Sabha seats in Bengal.
“The Congress should study the report of the results of the 2021 Assembly polls and then demand seats. Didi made it clear that only Trinamul can give the best fight against the BJP in Bengal because that’s reality,” the leader said.
Trinamul strongly condemned Adhir’s remarks.
“I will request him to listen to what he said in the past few days about the alliance across different media platforms. It will be clear it is none other than him (Adhir) who is ruining the prospect of the alliance in Bengal,” said Tapas Roy, Trinamul spokesperson.